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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28330263">from now on all your troubles will be miles away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightargents/pseuds/knightargents'>knightargents</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Banana Fish (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And him and Ash are neighbors, Autism, Autistic Sing Soo-Ling, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Outsider, Sing is 8 years old</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:09:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,297</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28330263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightargents/pseuds/knightargents</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the middle of the December winter, when the snow was heavy and the Christmas lights flickered colors on the pale ground, Ash disappeared in the middle of the night. </p><p>The Golzine’s had neighbors. Quiet people. A nice Chinese family that kept to themselves like everyone around them and never ventured into their neighbors’ business. They all lived in a small, semi-gated community. The parents were often busy with work and their eldest son was rarely home. </p><p>Their youngest was. And he saw everything.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ash Lynx &amp; Sing Soo-Ling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>from now on all your troubles will be miles away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>In the middle of the December winter, when the snow was heavy and the Christmas lights flickered colors on the pale ground, Ash disappeared in the middle of the night. </p><p>The Golzine’s had neighbors. Quiet people. A nice Chinese family that kept to themselves like everyone around them and never ventured into their neighbors’ business. They all lived in a small, semi-gated community. The parents were often busy with work and their eldest son was rarely home. </p><p>Their youngest was. </p><p>He was a boy of only 8 years old, and mostly kept to himself. Autism had given him sleeping problems and a hard time expressing his emotions and words. Often he stayed up past his bed-time, choosing instead to play with his toy cars and stare out the window in his bedroom at the soft, fluttering snow falling out the sky.</p><p>It’s five days til Christmas, a few days into winter break. The boy can hear his older brother’s music playing from his room across the hall. He stares out of the window towards the Golzine's house. Despite the family only being the father, Dino, and his son, Aslan, they had the biggest house on the street. He didn’t know anything about them, and his brother told him to stop trying to play with <em> Ash </em> when he caught them throwing a softball back and forth across their lawn one day. When he asked his brother why he couldn’t play with Ash, he told him that the Golzines were a bad family. </p><p>The boy doesn’t think they are a bad family. Ash was always nice to him the few times they played together before he wasn’t allowed to anymore. He asked his mama one day, curious about his brother’s distaste for the Golzine’s. Instead of his mother telling him not to listen to him and that playing with Ash was fine, she sharply turned to him and told him <em> never </em> to go anywhere near that house. Her reaction freaked him out so much that he stayed inside his room for the rest of the week.</p><p>But he still misses Ash. They got along so well, despite only ever playing together once or twice. And Ash was one of the few people in his life outside of his family that didn’t walk on eggshells around him. He shrugs off the feeling these days. He has other friends now, so he doesn’t necessarily miss or think of Ash, except in moments like this when he stares out his window directly into the Golzine’s backyard. </p><p>Bad things happen in winter. One year their family car got in an accident and his father was upset about it for weeks. Another year, his brother fell and broke his arm. </p><p>There’s bad things that happen in the Golzine house, too. </p><p>Of course, the boy doesn’t know what exactly. The adults always get quiet about it when they visit, whispering to each other when the kids are out of earshot. It’s like a secret that nobody wants to tell him about, not even his brother. Quite frankly, he doesn’t even know if his brother actually knows anything or if he just doesn’t like Ash. </p><p>He tries to ask him again one day. “Just drop it, Sing. Listen to mama, okay?”</p><p>“But Lao-”</p><p>“<em> Drop it </em>.”</p><p>It’s not just his brother, his parents act weird about it, too. Yesterday Mr. Golzine was yelling at Ash. Sing knows because he heard it from his bedroom and saw the man drag the blonde by his arm inside the house. His grip was too strong on Ash, who let himself be dragged inside the house, head low. When he told his parents about it they just told him that what goes on in other people’s homes is none of his business, and that he should stop looking for trouble with that family. </p><p>He was upset about it. How could his parents say that? How could Mr. Golzine humiliate his son like that in their front yard? It didn’t make sense to him, and the entire ordeal made him feel a little sick. </p><p>On the eve of Christmas, Sing stays up and makes his car toys race on the edge of his windowsill. The clock above his window says it’s 1 a.m. and he can hear his parents talking downstairs over the sound of the record they play. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Have yourself a merry little Christmas </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Movement catches his eyes and he turns toward the window. The boy watches, eyes wide as his breath creates a layer of condensation on the cold glass. Mr. Golzine slammed the backdoor of his house open and is dragging Ash into the backyard. Light floods from indoors outside, bathing them in a pale yellow. Ash isn’t wearing pants, and Sing notices that even the shirt he’s wearing seems too big and haphazardly thrown on, slipping off one shoulder. </p><p>There’s something wrong with Ash. Sing sits up more, eyebrows furrowing. The blonde stumbles and tries to pull away only for the man to yank him forward, the momentum nearly making Ash slip and fall in the snow. He’s not wearing shoes. Even Sing is getting cold just from being next to the window. Aren’t his feet going to be cold? </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Make the Yule-tide gay </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Mr. Golzine hauls Ash harshly across the snow-covered backyard and toward the metal shed that sits against their 8 foot tall fence. He’s shoved inside and the door is slid shut. Sing watches the man head back toward the house. </p><p>The child has all but stilled. His fingers dig slightly into the windowsill, mouth open in shock. His breaths make the condensation on the window grow, a cloud outstretching towards the edges. Dino nearly stomps back inside. He grabs onto the backyard door and slams it shut, the light leaving with it and basking everything in darkness again. Only the moonlight is there, slightly highlighting the 26 footsteps that Sing counts. Everything goes quiet. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> From now on our troubles will be miles away </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sing wakes up from his bed groggily, wiping his eyes and yawning. The sun is warm on his face from the window. He doesn’t remember getting into bed at all. At that thought, the blanket falls off his shoulders as he sits up suddenly, remembering the events he saw last night. It’s kind of blurry in his head, as if it was a dream. He practically runs to the window to see the 26 footsteps in the snow. </p><p>There’s nothing there.</p><p>Instead, a fresh blanket of snow covers the ground. There’s nothing that suggests what Sing saw actually happened. The boy stays there for a few more minutes, trying to see the footsteps that aren’t there. </p><p>“Sing! Come on, we have to open our presents!” Lao says from his doorway. Sing turns away, excited by the prospect of presents. Besides, Ash probably got up and went back inside before it snowed again anyway. </p><p>Sing, only 8 years old, didn’t know the metal shed only locks from the outside. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>One week later, Mr. Golzine gets into his fancy red car with three suitcases and drives away. He doesn’t come back. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>December ends and January ends and February ends and there’s a weird smell that his parent’s keep complaining about for weeks leading into March, growing worse until it’s April.</p><p>There are rats everywhere. Sing knows because his parents complain about them digging holes in their garbage bins. No one knows the rats like to go in and out of the hole in the door of Mr. Golzine’s metal shed, because no one watches them out of his window like he does. No one asks him and he doesn’t bring it up. </p><p>He has a very bad and weird feeling in his heart, but he doesn’t know what to tell his mama. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>:o)</p><p> </p><p>if you liked it come talk to me on my <a href="https://twitter.com/lovingtaeonmain">twitter</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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